Category Archives: hospitality photography

Retouching Hotel Rooms

My latest article is up over at Fstoppers.com. I created a 2 hour video going through every step I take when I’m retouching a hotel room photograph. It’s fairly in-depth, and fairly long. I’ve had a lot of questions from other photographers about my process, so I figured this would be the easiest way. Feel free to check out the video below, and read the full article over at Fstoppers here. To see more of my hotel work visit Dylan Patrick Hospitality Photography

Commercial Real Estate Photography

I had the recent opportunity to work with a local commercial real estate broker here in Los Angeles, to deliver some high quality storefront photos for his clients. He and his clients are both extremely happy, and while they did say they had never spent that much for exterior shots before, they felt they could begin to brand themselves around the look, and that the money was worth every penny to have something sexy and different than what people are used to seeing. I’m looking forward to working with them again, it’s so nice to have a client that gets it, and is willing to invest in a polished, refined, high end look. To view more visit Dylan Patrick Hospitality Photography

City Sights

The New Addition to Altitude Lounge at The Marriott San Diego Gaslamp

Returning client, The Marriott San Diego Gaslamp, had be back to photograph the recent City Sights addition to their already very popular Altitude Lounge. Its an awesome bar located on the roof of the hotel right across from the San Diego Padre’s Stadium. It was a blast to shoot, stunning views of the city at night and it can also be an awesome spot to have a meeting or reception! It’s always a pleasure to work with returning clients. For more of my hotel photography visit Dylan Patrick Hospitality Photography

Recent Hotel Photography

I recently completed some new work for the Hilton San Francisco Airport Bayfront, and The Hilton Waikiki. Getting to travel to various hotels, and create some fresh images for them is always a pleasure, especially when they are returning clients! The San Francisco property recently had their entire bar and restaurant renovated. Suffice to say it came out beautifully, and of course the Hilton in Waikiki is always a pleasure to visit, and those Ahi Tacos are amazing! To see more of my commercial Hotel, real estate, and architectural photography please visit Dylan Patrick Hospitality Photography.

The Year 2014

So the last time I wrote anything it was October of last year, so much for keeping up with the blog. 🙂 To be fair, it has been a crazy start to the year. First was the move. My wife and I packed everything up, bought a car and headed for Los Angeles. 2 weeks in the car with 2 cats and a carload of everything, and it was still a blast. We stopped in the beautiful southwest, which was really just a tease because we were there in February, and I’m dying to go back already. It’s a stunning part of the country and I’m stoked that we live a lot closer to it. Some serious camping adventures are coming. Below are just a few of my favorites, you can catch more from the southwest here.

We are settling into LA nicely, it is certainly different here. I’m in love with the weather and getting back to having a more active outdoor lifestyle. It has its minuses, but in the end I think we’ll be happy here, or somewhere in California for quite some time, as it may not always be LA. It has definitely been a very good change of pace. Once we got moved and settled I ended up flying back to NYC to wrap up a big commercial job I did for the new Crowne Plaza Hotel by JFK. Below are just a few highlights from that property. I love shooting hotels like this. Lots of style and thought went into the interior design which makes it a lot more fun to shoot.

Soon after getting home from NYC it was time to head to Charlotte for a big shoot at the Hilton Charlotte Center City. We spent over a week shooting still and video (more on that to come next week). Shooting Charlotte was a blast and I got one of my favorite hotel exterior shots. The hotel sat in a beautiful courtyard, and there just happened to be a perfect sized parking garage across the street. It came out awesome, we shot for over an hour and in the end I used over 50 different lighting layers to create the final image. The video below is the 3+ hours of retouching crunched down to 10 min. It goes pretty quick but it can give you a birds eye view of all the lighting work it took to make the image.

Here is a before and after as well 🙂

Stay Tuned…Big Things Coming!

When I left NYC I did leave the bulk of my headshot business there as well. I always knew this would be the biggest business challenge about the move. It took several years to build it up in NYC so I imagine it will take about the same or less here, and I’m perfectly fine with that. I’m going to work at getting back to NYC a couple times a year for headshots and I’m starting to push LA headshots more too, change is always a little nerve racking, but exciting at the same time. The headshot business has always really taken off with word of mouth, so I’ll go back and do it like NYC, just shoot and shoot and shoot and eventually people will talk! In the interim I’ll be working on some personal projects finally this year that I’m excited about. I’m looking to improve my commercial portfolio in the portrait department, so I’m going to create a few projects that have been eating at me for a while now.

Here’s a few fresh headshots from LA

Some very big things are going to be coming from me in the next couple months in the headshot department, and it’s geared for other photographers so keep your eyes peeled! Part of this process has also been a re-branding and revamp of everything. A special thank you goes out to Jeremy Deming of Jerm Designs and ArtCo Lab in Coeur d’Alene, ID. He killed it on my logo and gave me a really awesome branding package. If any photographers out there are looking for a killer graphic artist check him out, he kicks serious ass 🙂

This month has been crazy! We got back from San Diego shooting the Marriott in the Gaslamp district. I promptly headed back out of town for the day to shoot a music video, and then back to NYC to start an epic month of headshots in NYC. I had a roster of really fantastic clients this month. Headshots for me were fairly slow all summer and then BOOM! September and October have just rocked. On top of all of this I headed upstate to photograph the fall colors, and next week I’m going to start my next little personal video project of NYC.

On the Headshot front it’s been amazing this month. It always amazes me that 98% of my business is word of mouth, and now by extension social media. As much as blogging, Facebook, and Google+ can all drain hours of our lives it is very important to interact with our clients and encourage them to spread the word. Every couple months Google calls me to find out if I want to pay for a better rank (which mine is already pretty good). I often reply with a no. I tell them that even with all the amazing technology we have today, word of mouth for me, has still transcended it all. Most all of my clients find me from a friend, and I try to encourage this as much as possible with occasional referral deals, and so forth. Another item on the headshot agenda will be putting together another blogroll that is strictly for showcasing my clients and the work they have done or are currently doing as well. I have had clients recently appear in ads or articles for GQ, Bass Clothing, Nikon, Orlando Tourism, and more! So I want to be showcasing this more, and my clients rock so they deserve to shine! More on that to come!

It’s been a very stressful, exciting, and scary year, as I’ve been super busy with hotel and headshot work, which is amazing, but my wife and I are also going to move to LA and setup shop there. As a business owner who is self employed it makes sense on a number of levels. I tend to enjoy shooting outside for my headshots as much as possible, and living in LA will enable me to have the potential to make more money, and work more year round. It’s scary because I’ve become comfortable, and I enjoy the modest measure of success I’m having in NYC (and I LOVE NYC). My business has grown considerably in just 4 short years, and substantially in the last 2. Photography is hard to make money at, and I’m proud to be where I am. This of course leads to reservations about LA. All of this is natural but it just shows how important it is for any creative to challenge themselves, and not be afraid to be uncomfortable for awhile when your gut says 2 conflicting things. I will be coming back to NYC twice a year to start; for a week or two to shoot headshots, and based on my investigation of the idea so far there seems to be a lot of interest…so headshots are about to become Bi-Coastal!

I’m slowly pushing ahead into more and more video, and I’m looking forward to having more mobility in LA to enable me to formulate some creative projects that I have been wanting to do, which can be logistically a pain to pull off in NYC. I’m going to work on developing a video reel both for actors to accompany headshots, and their websites but also for real estate, hotel work, and some personal stuff, focusing on cinematography, and lighting. I’m also pushing to develop a portfolio with a couple projects geared at putting together a body of work that can appeal to a more commercial market, this will probably include some current works and some new ones I’m working on the concepts for now.

The change will be good and refreshing and in the end will be the best for me in the long term I think. More to come, for now enjoy a few highlights from the headshot side this month!